Ghosts of Christmas
by the queen of slurking
Summary: Mona brings Alison three Christmases: past, present and future.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: So, obviously this was inspired by the Christmas episode, but I decided to hold off the angst til **_**after**_** Christmas. Basically, I'm filling in what I wanted to see. **

**Still don't own anything.**

_Christmas Past_

She's seven when she learns the trick to a really good lie.

(Mona calls this the emergence of a monster and it stings, a little bit, because she's never considered herself a monster. She's been bored, and deceitful, manipulative and clever and cunning and wounded and predatorial, but she's sure that these don't add up to the label of a monster.)

She doesn't get the significance of two dresses, doesn't understand why her mother refuses to play it off as a funny little mistake, but she wants to be good. She wants to be her mother's favourite and so she nods, keeps her eyes trained on one manicured finger and repeats endlessly, _there was one yellow dress._

_One, one, one. One box, one dress._

By the next morning there is no evidence that there was ever a dress, hidden, or two dresses, and she's already begun to overwrite the memories. One small part of her brain, when she thinks about it, remembers two boxes, two identical dresses – the other, bigger part, overrules it with _one._

_One girl. One dress. One box._

The lies are insidious, creeping into her bones and winding through her veins. At dinner that night she lies, straight-faced, to her father. Her mother hides her approval behind a glass of wine, and Jason suspects nothing.

So now she knows how to lie, and she practices the way others practice swimming or French lessons or piano. She begins with a falsehood, repeats it so often that she begins to believe it. It's better to start small, so she begins by altering the colour of the shirt she wore or the name of the doll sitting on her dressing table. Every time she lies, there's the mental image: her mother, sat before her, one index finger raised, voice a tainted shade of maternal.

(It seems lying runs in the family)

It's all perfect again. Christmas dinner is a lavish thing, as always, with more food than four people can eat in one sitting, and as they unwrap presents, she's sure she can see a brief note of tension in her mother's shoulders, a quick spasm under the eye. It's gone before she blinks again though, and she hugs her parents in delight over her dress.

More gifts are brought out, not just from the tree but from little hiding places designed to stop accidental findings like the one with the piano. Her mother hands her each gift with a strange expression, a sad sort of smile which soon morphs into one of faint mistrust and wariness, because right now she still has the power to ruin things.

She stays quiet though, because right now she's being rewarded for something that she always thought was wrong.

This too is insidious.

Instead of honesty, she decides on lies as being more interesting – more fun for her to tell, and a kind of test to see if others will call her out, or if they're smart enough to see that she's lying.

The appeal quickly wears off: people don't question her, and if they do they back down quickly.

She becomes _bored_, so she spins more lies. It's become a habit now, one which is comfortable and easy and she has a good memory for continuity, a careful diligence about teaching herself her newest lies. Only the habit spins out of control, so she hides a journal inside a jacket pocket and keeps records.

Her gifts are put away carelessly, tarnished by being rewards instead of tokens of love. Usually there's a thrill, a delight when it comes to 'unpacking' new gifts and finding homes for them, but tonight that delight is gone. She's just a little bewildered at her mother teaching her to lie, and there's a sparkle of anger running through her mind that this wrong thing is rewarded.

(Time to test the ability, because maybe it was a one-off. She buries one of her new earrings in the corner, throws a scarf over it and relishes in the spite she feels. Later, she successfully explains that she was trying them on when it slipped from her ear, bounced somewhere she couldn't reach)

She has this new ability, this wretched gift her mother has given her, and the abundance of her presents overall tells her that lying is okay.

This is her second image when it comes to lying: the strain clear to her in her mother's face, the piles of gifts that buy her silence and make the guilt dissolve like sugar in hot water, and every time she tamps down the memory, brings back the memory of a single raised finger and piercing eyes.

In church that night, she feels ever-so-slightly wrong, as if her deceit is written on her face, but one look down brings her mother's hand into view, the one with the polish and the rings and she wonders why her mother folds four fingers in.

(Later she realizes: it's like when she raised her finger to her lips and mouthed _shhh _to her reflection, as if to remind herself to stay quiet)

It doesn't matter though. She's helping her mother, who promised that this one lie would keep their family together. Does that mean that the good outweighs the bad?

This thought cheers her and she leaves the church feeling good. She doesn't tease Jason back when he bugs her, and sees the surprise on her parents' faces when she doesn't argue. The rest of the night is peaceful, one of laughter and cheer and sneaking candy when no-one is looking.

(Already she's begun to learn that she has to destroy evidence, and so she bundles the wrappers into a tissue before she dumps them in the bin, cleans her teeth and blames Jason when her parents notice the lack of chocolates in the tray.)

No-one is blamed for it, because it is the sort of thing Jason would do, and so her parents smile as they send her to bed, her half-hearted complaints that Jason gets to stay up longer fading behind her as she climbs the stairs.

When she goes back to school, the teacher will ask the class if they learned anything. The woman is big on learning things, life lessons and morals and wrapping things into pretty packaging. Somehow, everything can be made into a learning experience with her.

Alison decides she won't reveal that she learned how to lie.


	2. Chapter 2

_Christmas: Present Day_

She's eighteen and the Christmas magic wore off long ago.

This isn't how she was expecting to spend her Christmas, as a half-orphan with no family around, and she doesn't have the heart to make the journey to her other relatives. Her main company is ghosts, her mother and Mona, and she almost welcomes the spectres because she isn't quite on her own – gets to talk to someone even if they're mocking or cruel.

(It's kind of a taste of her own medicine)

So Ghost-Mona hangs around and snarks at her and she snarks back, but it's a half-effort because for maybe the first time ever she feels drab, dull next to Mona.

It's her first real Christmas in years, the first one where she's at home and there are proper decorations up instead of sad tinsel in store windows and she's got all the plans for the Ice Ball underway. She should be feeling fabulous, but she isn't.

Instead of shopping, she's making two drab girls over into Spencer's likeness and when they turn to her, she muffles a snort of laughter because it's just ridiculous, twin knock-offs before her, but she can't alienate them because then she'll be left again with no-one. Instead of spending ages doing her hair and makeup, she rushes through them, not caring a lot about how she looks.

Christmas is supposed to be happy, but she feels nothing.

(There's ice in her, veins and eyes and teeth and she wonders if she'll freeze if she stands still long enough, so she makes sure to always keep moving, always be doing something to stop the ice circulating through her system)

The grand entrance is a mockery of her back-from-the-dead arrival at school, flanked by four people who are interchangeable in their dress and mask. She doesn't have the energy to stand out tonight, doesn't want to make herself a target any more than she needs to.

The five of them scatter almost as soon as they've reached the bottom step and her gaze is brought to the four girls she once called her best friends, clustered together. For a moment, she watches their body language: watches them lean close and talk quietly, silently contrasts them with her solitary stance.

CeCe remembers her though, comes with custom perfume and in a cloud of heavy makeup and she musters the gratitude she needs. It's too risky to take too long though, so they separate, having asked nothing and said less, and she doesn't look back as CeCe leaves. If she does, she'll just be seeing someone else walk away from her.

By the time she does turn and look CeCe is gone, and she knows that the girl is good at hiding. In a few hours she'll be off Rosewood's radar, drawing cash from somewhere untraceable and doing whatever she does when she's on the run.

She forces herself not to think about it and circulates some more.

(Pastes on a smile, pretends to be the gracious hostess – _we are what we pretend to be_ and bites back the urge to leave, return to an empty house)

The time passes slowly, for her. She's bored and there's no-one to talk to, nothing to do. Still, this is better than the last Christmases.

Mona brings her the imagination of her true death, and she wonders if this is her foreshadowing, how her life will play out: a beautiful corpse going unmourned. The brief exchange rings in her ears, that her death matters only to her – that in this church, there are only flowers sponsored by her father or brother, and no signs of other mourners.

She can imagine it too clearly now: briefly mourned, and soon forgotten by most. A packed funeral, but no school tributes, no shrines like there are for Mona.

For a girl who once wanted immortality, the thought brings fresh ice into her veins.

And so she sneaks around, feels dull and bland in her plain jumper and jeans, watches at the window as her old friends and their significant others set up their Christmas dinner. Some part of her hopes to be noticed and invited in, but then she looks at them and herself. They are all carefully dressed, dresses and skirts and proper shirts, while she is dressed for movies and popcorn on the couch.

It's more than that though, she is on her own tonight, and it is a table full of couples. She watches as Spencer makes sure Toby is comfortable, watches Hanna lean into Caleb, and her stomach churns slightly at the thought of breaking up the scene before her. She would be the ninth wheel, the one sticking out. The table is perfect for eight people; a ninth would make it awkward. Despite the distance, she is sure she can hear a wish that Mona was there.

Mona, not her.

For just a moment she closes her eyes, listening to laughter and chatter and glasses clinking together. If she tries, she can imagine how everyone shifts to clink glasses with everyone else at the table, and she steps away a few paces.

They look like a family, despite the fact that there is no blood link between any of them.

The brightness of the house, the sparkle of the champagne, the colours of dresses and the imagined warmth get to her and she backs off the porch as though it's poison. This family, like her own, has no room for her.

She can be sure they are not thinking about her at all.

She leaves as silently as she came, not troubling to look behind her. There will be no-one at the door, no-one calling her name and imploring her to come in from the snow. Snow whirls around her, and she cares nothing for the chill on her face, makes no effort to protect herself further from the sharp winds.

So she returns home in her cloak of snow. The house is dark, empty and not quite cold. There is no fire going: there's no-one around to maintain it, no-one around to care. The tree stands, decorated and perfect, in the corner, but the presents are still there and for a minute she considers taking it all down, distributing the gifts to the appropriate rooms.

Instead of the usual Christmas dinner items, there are a few basics in the kitchen: ham and chicken in the fridge, a loaf of specialty bread in the breadbin, roast vegetables on a platter above the meats.

Jason isn't around and nor is her father. A quick check of her phone reveals no messages from either.

She fixes up a cold sandwich, makes a hot chocolate the way she thinks her mother made it (it's been too long, she doesn't remember) and retires to her bedroom, flicks on the space heater.

Ghost-Mona doesn't return – then again, she doesn't need to.


	3. Chapter 3

**And we've reached the final chapter. Thank you for the reviews/favourites/follows.**

_Christmas: The Future._

This time around Alison is twenty-nine, and Ghost-Mona taunts her about her aging.

("Is that a wrinkle?"

Mona looks a bit smug at the annoyance, because as a ghost she hasn't aged a day, still looks every bit the eighteen-year-old she was in death. It's her immortality)

She's become used to this now, used to being a ghost watching herself.

And okay, she wasn't watching herself when she had her solitary Christmas and visited at her mother's grave with flowers, but she's watching this scene play out and she really can't decide which is sadder, this or her homecoming Christmas.

So she shoves her hands in the pockets of her jeans and watches Future-Ali sweep around a room like she owns it, even though it's obvious that she doesn't.

(Bland wallpaper, desk and bed and ensuite and through the open door a hallway lined with doors, and she doesn't pause to think about all the other matching rooms. Instead she clicks the door shut, gets to work)

A planner lies open on the desk and she edges closer knowing she won't disturb Future-Ali, knows that she is completely invisible. There's a work function on tonight, the twentieth, but there are no plans to meet with friends or family. Dismayed for the first time since Mona showed up, she leafs through to see what her life holds in store.

An asterisk in mid-June denotes _Dad_, and she recognizes it as the same way she marks the date of her mother's death. There's no detail in her contacts list that she recognizes: the names are all a mystery to her, no listing of Jason or anyone at all from Rosewood.

She whirls, frantic, tries to ignore Mona's smirk in the background. There's a phone, two actually. One seems to be a work phone, because once she sets it down Future-Ali makes a call that discusses business, deadlines and articles and stories.

(So she's a journalist? Not surprising)

The other phone is emptier, a few vital contacts though she still doesn't know the names. Friends, maybe, or colleagues, she doesn't care to find out. The inbox is bare, just a few perfunctory messages from which she infers her relationships.

Disappointed now, she steps back to by Mona who watches as Future-Ali unzips a dress from a garment bag, steps into the red silk and grapples with the long zip at the back. There's no-one to help her, no-one to praise her appearance or offer her anything.

Her spirits fall just a little more.

Beside her, Mona is picking at her nail polish.

The woman before them twists up her hair, swipes on makeup with the air of someone who doesn't want to be here and collects things into a little clutch purse, locks the door and strides down the hall.

Side-by-side, the ghost girls follow, each wanting to see this for their own reasons.

It's a lovely event. The room is grand and carefully decorated, no doubt by someone who specializes in Christmas decoration. The food looks good, a perfectly-prepared banquet laid out on tables that span a wall and she's reminded of her own Christmas sandwich dinner. Her future self circulates the room, but her younger self sees how people sometimes step away from her, close a circle in such a way that she's edged out just a bit. She begins the evening with a cocktail in her hand and a faintly hopeful smile on her face, but soon enough the hope becomes poison because people still don't want to know her.

Maybe she's some kind of toxin.

She's beginning to choke on her emotions just a bit and Mona smiles, the kind of smile that promises her just a bit more misery.

Somehow, they whip forward in time, maybe Mona is using some ghostly juju, and the calendar flutters onto the twenty-fifth. They watch silently as Future-Ali wakes in her hotel bed, alone, and doesn't reach for an alarm.

(There was no alarm to wake her, no reason for her to be up early)

And now she gets it, kind of.

They watch as Future-Ali slowly gets dressed, moving around the room with the ease of someone who has become very at home here, and does her makeup. One hand is kept on the personal cell phone, but the only call is on the work one.

(Her boss likes her, likes how she can wrangle all sorts of obscure details from a person, and she's never explained all the years of practice she has. No sense in making herself seem like a sociopath again)

She remembers the lack of family, and delves through the phones and planner for CeCe. Maybe she can induce her future self to call CeCe, maybe it'll be okay.

In the planner, she halts at another asterisk. The month blurs in front of her, she doesn't see it, because beside it, in Future-Ali's cursive is a _CeCe, _and she chokes up all over again. She's pleading now, would be if there was any oxygen in her lungs, but Mona is merciless and so they shuffle off to watch her future self again.

This is the track she is on: eating Christmas dinner alone in a hotel dining room, forgotten by those she called friends and her family either dead or not in contact. She watches, forgetting Mona's presence for once, as a jolly staffer dressed as an elf speaks into the microphone, but doesn't listen. Instead, she watches him and decides his smile is too bright, too fixed.

He doesn't want to be here, celebrating Christmas with the hotel's temporary residents. She looks at him, his goofy tie and the wedding band he fidgets with, and realizes he probably has a family waiting for him at home. It seems her future self comes to the same realization, because as everyone is applauding politely (scattered tables half-empty) she drops her napkin on the table and flees.

Moments later she returns, makeup refreshed and Alison is sure that there's a bottle of eye-drops in her bag just for the purpose of removing redness. Even so, it doesn't stop her from picking at the ham and bread and vegetables, doesn't stop her from glancing around just once for someone to engage in conversation. It fails though because everyone else is intent on their plates, even if they're not actually eating.

It's the strategy, she realizes, to be so interested in dinner that everyone else around is just a bystander. Everyone here is alone, and the jolly elf has left.

This time when she drops her napkin on the table, she returns to the security of her room, opens her laptop to find an empty inbox and closes it just as quickly. Alison and Mona watch as she starts to dial room service, but the phone falls from her hand. She makes no effort to pick it up, because right now it would take a Christmas miracle to turn this day around.

Mona offers no sympathy, but for once the teasing is dimmed and she is somber, matter-of-fact.

She says nothing, but she doesn't really need to. Her task is done: she has made Alison understand the path she is on.

The rest is up to Alison.


End file.
